


mightier than the sword

by adreadfulidea



Category: Mad Men
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Novelist AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:39:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9820883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreadfulidea/pseuds/adreadfulidea
Summary: Michael read his first Calvet novel when he was in the middle of breaking up fast and ugly with Bob.





	

 

 

Michael read his first Calvet novel when he was in the middle of breaking up fast and ugly with Bob.

He picked it up on a whim while killing time in the airport duty-free. His rush to get out of Detroit had been so acute that he left most of stuff behind, including almost all of his books. He never did recover them. Anyway, it was all packed into his luggage; all he had in his carry-on was a bottle of water and his laptop. He needed a distraction.

Romance was about the last thing he would have chosen if he had been paying attention. He didn’t want to think about falling in love ever again; if anyone had asked he would have said he was done with all that. All he wanted was to wash away the numb ache in his chest. That and to sleep for roughly a month.

But he couldn’t sleep on a plane, and so he bought a book.

He liked the cover design, and the synopsis said something about mysterious goings on at a convent. Michael wasn’t very familiar with Catholicism and he liked mysteries. He thought it might be interesting. Something new.

And it was. The characters were great; somehow he had never really thought of nuns and priests as actual people but they hopped off the page, filled with humor and humanity. The unconventional Mother Superior - who kept sneaking away to try and teach herself how to play the flute, only to be interrupted every time - was his favorite. Sister Magdalene and Father Durand got closer so gradually he hardly noticed it. By the time she was praying for her feelings to be taken away, Michael had tears in his eyes.

He hadn’t taken any vow of celibacy but he knew what it was like to wish you could cut your love out and be done with it. To feel weak and ashamed in the face of how you felt. _Agape_ was a book written for the heartsick.

A flight attendant leaned over his seat. “Are you alright, sir?”

“What?” Michael wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Uh, yeah. My eyes are watering, that’s all. Dry air and everything.”

 

 

When he decided to get the book signed it was by chance. He was back in New York, staying with Stan and Peggy for the time being and listening to his father grumbling about how come he didn’t just stay with _him_.

“You live in a one bedroom apartment,” he told him. “Without even a pull-out. I’m not gonna sleep on the floor.”

“ _I_ could sleep on the floor,” Morris argued, as though that were in any way reasonable for a man in his late sixties, and around they went again.

So, anyway. He was staying with Stan and Peggy, back in New York, when he came across a sign outside the Strand advertising a book signing. There was a modest lineup inside - he looked through the window - and a dark-haired woman seated at a table, head bowed, scribbling her name inside covers and on pages.

He checked the sign. It said she was Megan Calvet.

Michael didn’t have his copy of the book on him, but that was okay - he’d been meaning to lend it to Peggy anyway, and she always forget to return the books he lent her. He could give her the old one and keep the signed copy for himself.

He didn’t know why he wanted to get it signed, exactly. It wasn’t his usual modus operandi. He was a writer who spent a ton of time with other writers, and anything that might have seemed magical about the process had been demystified a long time ago. And he’d never been the souvenir type. Autographs were just a name on a piece of paper.

But he wanted to meet her, kind of. As much as he ever wanted to meet anyone. That book had done a lot for him, at a real low point - as cheesy as it was, he thought he might be able to tell her so.

People had said similar things to him, occasionally. It always meant something.

He grabbed a copy of the book and went to wait in the line, which was mostly women. He was flipping through, re-reading some of his favorite passages, when he got to the autograph table. So he hadn’t been looking at her and he got one _hell_ of a surprise when he did.

Megan Calvet was beautiful, the way movie stars were beautiful. When she smiled at him something in his chest went tight and terrified.

“I did _not_ expect you to look like that,” he said, and then clapped his hands over his face in horror.

“Um,” Megan said. “What?” As well she might.

“Nothing,” he managed to squeak out. Oh my god, what was wrong with him. “I’m not - forget - oh Jesus.”

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“No,” he said. He’d gone bright red, and people were staring at him. He didn’t dare look at anyone. “I’m just gonna leave now.” He turned, abruptly, and banged into the lady standing behind him. “Sorry,” he said, “sorry -”

“Wait!” Megan said, “Don’t you want your book signed?”

Which reminded him, halfway to the door, that he hadn’t paid for it. He threw it on the nearest shelf and ran the rest of the way.

 

 

The problem with Michael - besides everything, besides the undefeatable anxiety disorder and the social problems and the tragic fucking past and all the rest of it - was that he couldn’t talk to interesting or attractive people. Bob liking him had been an unusual stroke of luck; Bob wanting to actually be with him had been a miracle. And he’d screwed that up, hadn’t he?

Honestly he was probably never going to date again.

He looked her up, when he was back home. She was all over social media - twitter, instagram, and a bunch of underwear modelling shots from college he accidentally found and pretended not to have seen. Her instagram was filled with pictures of her standing in the sunlight at the beach, on rainy streets in Paris and Montreal, marching in a Pride parade with little rainbows painted on her cheeks and a big grin on her face. She was very photogenic.

“Why did I think you were an old lady?” he said to the screen.

“What?” Peggy asked from the kitchen.

“Nevermind,” he said, quickly, and closed the laptop before he could become any more embarrassing.

He refused to let himself google her again. But he read all her books.

 

 

Worldcon was being held in Helsinki that year. “I’m not sure I can afford to go,” he told Stan, while they picked their way through a pot of macaroni and cheese in front of the TV. He’d laugh at Stan for living like a bachelor, but Peggy was just as bad. Currently she was passed out in the chair, her mouth hanging open. She didn’t move even after they turned the volume up.

“You’re hugely successful,” Stan said. “You’re nominated for a Hugo, for Christ’s sake. Doesn’t that mean you have to go?”

“It’s not obligatory,” he said, picking at his food. “I’m not gonna win.” The truth was it had nothing to do with money. He just didn’t want to go: to put on a smile, to try and promote himself, to talk to fans or booksellers or anyone at all. Cons were work. He wasn’t up to it.

Stan sighed and took his bowl away from him. “Look. Ginzo. It’s been months. I feel for you, man, but you have to get back on the horse.”

“I moved out,” he said, looking down at his empty hands. “I’m not in your way -”

“That’s not what I meant,” Stan said. He put his arm around Michael’’s shoulders. “Picture it: Worldcon 2017. Crowds of scantily dressed aliens of every gender -”

“Oh my god,” Michael said.

“You need to get laid, man.”

Michael shoved him off. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said, “but sometimes I hate you.”

 

 

Helsinki was cooler in the summer than New York would have been but that was no bad thing. He hated the heat and the humidity, the way he only felt like a human being when he was next to an air conditioner. He didn’t love being on planes, either. As usual he had stayed up all night worrying about what he’d do if it crashed, which was - of course - die screaming.

Michael was always worrying. It interfered with his grades when he was a kid, his work as an adult, and his sleep always. When he was in college he had once been up for three and a half days because he was convinced he was going to flunk out and ruin his whole life. He’d hallucinated bugs on the walls, tried to touch them, and his freaked out roommate had called the campus police.

He’d thought it was all over, then. He was going to lose his scholarship and have to go home and work at a deli forever, just like Pop. They didn’t have two pennies to rub together. There would be no second chances.

There was a cot in the nurse’s office and he’d lain on it face down, refusing to talk to any of the concerned professionals surrounding him. He might have been crying. And then Dr. Holloway, his statistics professor, had come in.

“Straighten up and stop being a baby,” she said, so he did.

She sat down next to him while he wiped his face on his sleeve.

“Do you need a doctor?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Maybe.”

She gave the nurse a look, who headed off to do something. “They can’t kick you out for having a mental illness,” she told him, gently. “That’s against the law. And you didn’t even miss a class.”

“I’m _not_ ,” he said. “I don’t have -”

“Michael,” she said, and he quieted down. “You’re a freshman. Five of you have breakdowns every month. It’s very common.”

He’d started to see a doctor after that and never quite got out of the habit. Every Thursday, unless he was on vacation.

The flight to Helsinki took eight hours. He kept closing his eyes, imagining himself safe on the ground.

 

 

He took a nap at the hotel and woke up in the early evening. The city outside his window was sprawling and shining, the lights from the buildings reflecting off the water. It was old and new at once, angular flat modernism sitting right next to ornate cathedrals that could have been plucked from Czarist Russia. Michael wondered what the art galleries were like. He put his hand on the glass, marveling that he was allowed this.

The wifi in his room sucked so he stepped out into the hallway and walked back and forth, trying to get the email to work on his phone. It kept signing him out.

He was leaning against the wall, eyes fixed on the screen, when someone walked up to the room next to his. He looked over and saw Megan Calvet standing there.

“Hi,” she said, and waved the hand that wasn’t on the handle of her luggage. “Are you here for the con, too?”

Why had he gone out into the hallway shirtless, he thought frantically. Why did he do anything he did.

“Um,” he said, while his mind spun like a top trying to find something intelligent or interesting to say. “Yes.”

“So am I,” she said, and laughed. “But I just said that, didn’t I? I’m kind of nervous, I’ve never been to one of these things before.” She flashed her badge at him. “But I’m an invitee, see? I’m on one of the panels.”

“That’s nice.” Michael was panicking. Why didn’t he have any words? He always had words. He never shut the fuck up. Now suddenly it was like he didn’t understand english.

“Maybe we’ll cross paths,” she said, and gave him a charmingly toothy smile. It made her look less perfect, and even prettier.

“I doubt it,” he said, and immediately wanted to throw himself out the window.

Megan visibly deflated. “Oh,” she said, and unlocked her door. “Well. See you.” She went inside before he could apologize, or alternately say anything worse.

The door closed with a decisive click. Michael pressed his forehead to the wall. “Stupid,” he muttered. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

 

 

Worldcon was a big convention. He started the day with continental breakfast at the hotel and spent some time wandering the art show - there was some stuff there that Stan would have loved, in the style of old pulp scifi covers. He was always talking about how much better commercial art used to be. Michael made a note to come back at the auction and see if there was something he could pick up for Stan and Peggy.

Around ten in the morning he ducked into a panel on The History of Women in Science Fiction. There was a presentation going on about D.C.Fontana. All the panelists were women this time, thank god, and Megan was sitting on the very end. She was talking quietly with another panelist, their heads bent together.

Michael slumped down in his seat. He hoped she didn’t notice him. It was like his brain poured out of his ears every time they spoke.

The moderator opened the panel up to questions. Someone asked about some behind the scenes Star Trek stuff that he was already familiar with, and Michael’s attention drifted until he snapped back to attention at the sound of Megan’s voice.

“I’m pretty new to this,” Megan was saying into her mic in response to an audience member who recognized her from her romance work and asked her a question about her latest. “And I’d say the book is still a love story, but I wanted to explore some themes of isolation, of how human connection might change in the future, especially as we come in contact with people who are completely alien to ourselves. So yeah, I consider it science fiction. I figure if Mary Shelley could invent the genre as a teenager in the nineteenth century then I can at least give it a shot.”

A guy in the audience stood up. He had the look of trouble about him right away; Michael recognized that nerdier-than-thou aura of smugness. “Mary Shelley didn’t invent science fiction,” he said. “ _Frankenstein_ was a horror novel.”

“Well, it’s gothic fiction,” Megan said. “But it’s science fiction, too. Did you know that we used to call scifi scientific romance? Of course, the term romance meant -”

“It’s about a reanimated corpse,” said the guy. “That makes it horror.”

“So are zombie movies,” said Michael, who was sick of his bullshit already, and forget about how uncertain Megan looked up on the stage. “No one would argue those can’t be science fiction. Mary Shelley wrote _Frankenstein_ and she also wrote _The Last Man_ , which was the first piece of post-apocalyptic fiction. And the concept of cryonics, she created that one too. All this thirty or forty years before H.G. Wells or Jules Verne were doing anything at all.”

The guy glanced over at him, and Michael could see recognition on his face. Somehow this type always read his books. It was very annoying. “And she’s right,” he added, to be an asshole. “It was called gothic fiction. Not horror.”

“I’m sure we could talk about this all day,” said Megan. “But thank you.” She was looking right at him.

He tried to get out quickly after the panel let out, but she caught up to him too fast. “Hey,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder as he waited for the crowd to thin. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure,” he said, trying to sound uninvested. It didn’t work. God, what if she thought he was following her?

But she only wanted to thank him again. “I didn’t really know how to handle that guy,” she said.

“I’ve met that kind before,” he said. “He probably believes fake geek girls are a real thing.” He scratched the back of his neck and tried to determine how to proceed. “Look. If I offended you before I’m sorry. I’m not good at meeting people. I have some kinda social deficiency.”

“Not at all,” she said. “I figured you must have been tired. Do you come to a lot of conventions?”

“Some,” he said. “I’m a writer, so.”

“Really?” Megan said, excited. “What’s your name? I bet I’ve heard of you.”

“Michael Ginsberg.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m going to admit right now that I _haven’t_ heard of you -”

He laughed; he couldn’t help it.

“- but now that I have I promise I’ll read your books. And I know that you’ve read mine.”

Michael’s entire life flashed before his eyes. “Shit,” he said. “You remember that.”

She smiled in a sweet and impish way. “Yeah,” she said. “I remember.”

 

 

Megan wanted to meet up after lunch. “But first I have to get into my costume,” she said. So he waited in the hall at about one in the afternoon, unsure if he should knock on her door or not. At ten after she came out. “What do you think?” she asked, a little bit nervous, like she wasn’t sure if she was doing it right.

“You look great,” he said, and he was being honest. “How’d you do the scars?”

“It’s standard stage makeup,” she said, tucking a strand of the dark blonde wig behind her ear. It was a good one that resembled actual hair. “I used to be an actress. Hang around backstage long enough and you’ll pick up a thing or two.” She pressed her palm to her pregnant belly, like it was real. “Are you going to dress up as anything?”

He wasn’t wearing anything special except for his IDIC t-shirt. “No,” he said. “I rarely do. Not even for Halloween, usually.”

She tugged on his sleeve. “You should,” she said. “Too bad you don’t have a leather jacket here. You could be Max.”

“I wouldn’t make a very impressive Max,” he said. “You sure did pick right, though.” She was a good physical match, with her high cheekbones and full lips.

“I think you’d be cute!” she protested.

“Mad Max isn’t supposed to be cute,” Michael said, afraid she was going to end up talking him into something. And then pictures would end up on the internet and Stan would laugh forever. “Anyway - come on, Angharad. Time to go to the green place.”

“Maybe you should have been Furiosa,” she said, and linked her arm with his. The tips of his ears went red.

 

 

Attending a con with Megan was not like attending one by himself, he quickly discovered. She seemed to carry a sort of light around with her. People wanted to talk to her. They came up and complimented her costume, asked for pictures. They got stopped so she could pose with other groups of cosplayers - the wives that were missing an Angharad, a Furiosa with a real prosthetic arm - and she became involved in a conversation on the merchandise floor that somehow led to getting invited up to somebody’s hotel room for a party. Michael hated parties. He could have let her go by herself, but he didn’t trust a bunch of strangers. Along he went.

It wasn’t so bad. There were free drinks and nobody cared that they were kind of gatecrashers. He got a little drunk, maybe more than a little, and ended up sitting on the bed with Megan halfway in his lap.

She was still in costume, and the fake belly shook when she laughed. He put his hand on it to stop it from moving, or because he thought it was cute, or - he didn’t know.

Megan tapped her forefinger against his chin. His lips parted slightly. He wondered if she was going to kiss him, and then realized that was insane.

“You don’t drink much, do you?” she asked.

“Sure I do,” he said. “On my birthday, or at - at hockey games -”

“Have you ever _been_ to a hockey game?”

“No,” he said, a giggle bubbling up in his throat. He looked up at the ceiling, because at some point he had fallen backwards. The mattress jostled when she leaned over to peer into his face. “Megan,” he whispered. “I think I’m kinda looped.”

“Uh huh,” she said. “I thought so. Time to pack it in.”

“Awww,” he complained, but she was already pulling him up towards her. She walked him back to his room - he wasn’t really swaying on his feet, or anything, but it took him a couple of tries to get his key in the lock. “You wanna come in?” he asked, more casually than he ever would have been able to sober.

“Yesss,” she said, tilting her head to the side. “But it’s probably not the best idea right now.”

Michael went in alone, and fell onto the bed. He managed to kick off his shoes before he fell asleep.

 

 

The next morning his phone woke him up, ringing on the bedside table. “Hello?” he groaned into it, his head pounding.

“How’s it going?” Stan asked.

“I’m hungover,” he said. “Leave me alone.”

“Well, that’s a good sign,” said Stan. “You meet anyone yet?”

“What do you think?”

“For god’s sake, Ginsberg,” said Stan. “You loser.” And then he hung up.

Michael was going to go back to sleep but there was a knock at the door. He heaved himself out of bed and was horrified to find Megan on the other side of it, smiling broadly and holding coffee and pastries out to him.

“Morning,” she said, breezing past. “You look like you aren’t having the best one.”

He winced. “I know,” he said, conscious of his rumpled clothes and his disheveled hair. God, why hadn’t he at least changed into his pyjamas? “I had too much to drink last night. You were right.”

Megan sat down in one of the chairs by the window. She opened the bag and took a danish out. “I thought so. The coffee will help.”

“I’m gonna take a shower first,” he said, because he felt like he’d slept in the gutter. He thought Megan might leave but she was getting comfortable, arranging the food on an end table, curling up in the chair with her legs tucked to the side.

“You can always microwave it,” she said. “And, oh - drink some water.”

He borrowed one of the hotel bathrobes after and sat with her. The coffee did help.

“I figured you might like to do some sightseeing,” she said. “There’s this place called Seurasaari Ulkomuseo - it’s a group of historic buildings on an island not far from here, like a pioneer village. We could take the ferry. You want to go?”

How could he say no, when she was looking at him all hopeful? A headache was nothing, he could live with a headache. “You got any aspirin?” he asked.

 

 

Seurasaari Ulkomuseo was a collection of about eighty buildings. They’d been brought from all over Finland and were from different time periods, but Michael wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. They all just looked old, and interesting. They had long names full of complicated vowel sounds.

“How did you know about this place?” he asked.

“Read about it years ago,” she said.

“Pretty impressive that you could remember what it was called.”

Megan smiled. A cool gray shadow from the trees overhead passed across her face. Ahead of them on the path there were kids playing tag and tourists snapping pictures. “I used to have kind of an obsession with this part of the world,” she said. “When I was a kid I’d pretend to be a Viking so I could jump out of closets and attack my sister. Do you have any siblings?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” he said, and changed the subject quickly. “So was Finland part of the whole Viking experience?”

“Not really,” she said. “Though they _are_ both Nordic. But I believe they occasionally raided it.”

“Nice neighbors to have,” he said.

The island was populated with costumed employees who were dressed in embroidered vests and cloth headdresses. They engaged in traditional activities and answered visitor questions. Michael didn’t bother any of them. He wasn’t one for guided tours - it was more fun to discover things by accident, like the windmill they found or the cabin propped up on huge stones and with a shack for smoking and salting fish out back. It was easy to imagine people living here, sitting around wood fires in the winter or following reindeer through the snow.

“Michael, look,” Megan said, and dragged him over to a stone church.

The inside of it was curved like the hull of a boat turned upside down. The ceiling was an aged grayish white and the walls a faded green; according to the information outside it was the oldest building on the island. There was a line of ancient painted icons, saints or biblical figures, in the back and a model ship dangled in the air.

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” Megan said. She walked through shafts of pale light that spilled in through the windows. They were alone, and the church was silent except for their voices.

“Megan?” he asked.

“Yes?”

The inside of his mouth was dry. He pressed on. “You want to go for dinner tonight?”

If she was surprised, she didn’t show it. “Yes,” she said, and anticipation curled through him like smoke.

 

 

They went to a place called Restaurant Lappi that was supposed to serve authentic Northern Finnish food. But first Megan went up to her room to change. She seemed to have an outfit for everything.

They met up again in the lobby of their hotel. He kept wondering if _he_ should have changed, but when the elevator doors opened and she stepped out everything else got knocked out of his head. He even forgot to be nervous.

She was wearing a knee length dark blue dress that looked like an old-fashioned slip, lace at the bust and on the hem, made of satin or silk that he immediately wanted to touch. Her earrings were big and gold, her heels high and thin.

“Wow,” he said.

“Is it okay?” she said. “Not too dressy?”

“Jesus no,” he said, and then looked down at himself in consternation. “Except that I’m gonna look like a smuck next to you. You sure you don’t want to leave me behind?”

“Never,” she said. “Did you call a cab?”

“There’s a stand outside.” He’d been about to suggest public transportation, but not with her in those shoes. She shivered a little while they were waiting; the night was a touch cool. He gave her his jacket. “I know it doesn’t match,” he said. “But we’re all making sacrifices here.”

She grinned at him. “It’s perfect. Thank you.” In the cab he had to force himself to stop looking at her to avoid being creepy. He felt like he was out on the town with a model. And he’d never even met a model.

He told himself, firmly, that it didn’t mean anything. She just wanted to look pretty. Nothing to do with him.

The restaurant was all raw wood inside, on the walls like a log cabin, on the ceiling in the shape of a wheel. There was a stone hearth in the back, and the light was low and warm. Very cozy. Megan ordered them a couple of glasses of wine as soon as they were seated. She put her napkin in her lap, so he did too.

“I have a question,” she said, her fingers on the stem of her wine glass.

“Yeah?”

“Did you really read my books?”

“Sure I did,” he said. “Why would I have gone to your book signing otherwise?”

“I don’t know. Because you wanted to talk to me?”

He found himself blushing in the dark, embarrassed at being caught. “ _Agape_ made me cry on a plane,” he said, in order to heap more humiliation upon himself.

“Oh no,” Megan said. “It’s not supposed to do that!”

“I felt understood by it,” he said. “I guess - I was breaking up with my boyfriend, at the time, and I was weepy in general. The book wasn’t sad.”

“Your boyfriend,” she said, very politely, and unless he was hallucinating (possible): also disappointed.

“No,” he said, “I mean, yes, - I’m bisexual. That’s what I’m trying to say. Yup, bisexual.” He was also an idiot, which wasn’t a sexual orientation. And he tended to forget it wasn’t written on his forehead for all to see. Maybe he was obvious only to himself.

“Really?” she asked. “That’s great. Me too.”

“We should have a secret handshake.”

Megan laughed - she clearly thought he was funnier than he was - and fidgeted with the napkin in her lap. “It’s nice to be able to say it out loud.”

“You couldn’t before?”

She shook her head. “No. Not when I was married.”

Michael wasn’t a very careful person, conversationally. He typically said the first thing that occurred to him, entirely separate from social appropriateness. But he could recognize a minefield when one was laid out in front of him. “That doesn’t sound good,” he said.

“It wasn’t,” Megan said. “Honestly, Don - that’s my ex husband - didn’t really like me having female friends I was very close with. And then other times he’d act like it was a phase I went through in college.”

“I’ve known that type,” said Michael. “I’m lucky I never married any of ‘em.” Bob hadn’t cared that Michael liked women also. That wasn’t one of their issues. But he had certainly met men who would have.

“I really shouldn’t have told you about him,” she said. “That’s what everyone wants to hear, right, stories about the nightmare ex? I sound very stable.”

“Megan -”

“I’m sorry, I - honestly, I haven’t been out like this in a while. My divorce was finalized a couple of months ago. He -”

“Yeah?”

“ - kept dragging it out,” she finished. “I must still be off balance. But I’m in therapy, promise!” Immediately she dropped her head into her hands. “Oh my god,” she muttered. “I just told you I was in therapy.”

He reached over and pulled her hands away from her face, gently. “I don’t mind,” he said. “You’re less intimidating to me now.”

She frowned, like she couldn’t believe it. “Intimidating? Me?”

“Megan,” he said. “I _ran_ from you.”

“That’s true,” she said, a hint of a smile springing to life. “You did.”

“What can you do that would be worse?”

“I wanted things to go well,” she said. “I was very excited for tonight.”

His insides all light and fluttery. He tried not to let it show. “Then I’ll do my best to live up to your expectations.”

“You already have,” she said. The waiter came by to take their orders. They were splitting some kind of meat and cheese plate, most of it unfamiliar to his American palate. There were cups of red caviar, wild game, paté. Michael concentrated on the food in front of him to calm himself down.

“I googled you,” she said, and he stared.

“What?”

“Yes.” Megan was unconcerned, biting into a cracker. “But I didn’t find much. Are you on a social media fast?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t have it to begin with because Roger, my agent, won’t let me. He says all I do with it is argue with Republicans and alienate potential readers.”

Megan laughed and so did he. The tension that was holding his spine stiff dissipated.

“So why did you break up?” she asked. “You and your boyfriend?”

“Bob was a social climber,” he said, which was the long and the short of it. “He was very concerned with appearances, I wasn’t, and neither of us was gonna change.” In the end they weren’t sleeping in the same room. And it was so strange, so strange, because once they couldn’t stand to be apart. “We were incompatible. I don’t blame him.”

“I’ll blame him for you,” she offered. Under the table her foot bumped against his.

 

 

They went back to the hotel in the crisp dark that wasn’t a dark, the way it never is in cities; headlights, glowing storefront windows, the streetlights lining the road. She wore his coat again.

“Are you going to bed right away?” she asked, when they were in the elevator heading up to their floor.

“Not likely,” he said. He was too charged up; success got him antsy as much as failure did. “Why?”

“I thought we could have a drink.”

“You want to go down to the hotel bar?” He lifted his hand to press the button for the main floor. She stopped him, curling her fingers around his.

“I thought we could have a drink in your room,” she said.

He exhaled. “Oh. That would - that would be nice.”

But in his room he couldn’t settle down. “There’s vodka,” he said, digging through the mini bar. “And rum. And a bottle of - I don’t know, Sambuca or something -”

“Michael,” Megan said. Her voice was warm and fond. “I don’t care about the drink. Come here and kiss me, would you?”

He did, and it was even better than he expected. Her skin was soft, impossibly so, and he could have done just that (his hands on the small of her back, their mouths pressed together) all night. She had other plans.

“Sit down,” she told him, gesturing to the edge of the bed. He listened, and she knelt in front of it, the jacket he lent her folded under her knees.

He stared, dizzy with the sudden spike of his own arousal. Heart like a steel drum, blood heading distinctly southwards.

Megan opened his jeans and peeled them down his thighs. “Well, look at that,” she murmured. “You’re not so shy after all.”

“Fuck,” he said, and tried to stuff his hands in his mouth to shut himself up.

Megan laughed; since she was currently occupied in rolling his boxers down over his hips her warm breath blew across his erection and he twitched. She caught a drop of precome on her fingertips and rubbed it across the head of his cock. Michael lifted his hips, hissing out another curse. He was glad she’d had him sit down because he might not have been able to stay on his feet.

Not when she licked him from base to tip; not when she sucked the head of his cock into her mouth for a single incandescent minute. Not when she let him go to say, “You can come in my mouth, if you want,” and then swallowed him down.

And god, god - her mouth was so hot and it was so _wet_ -

Megan held his hips down while she sucked him off, but he would have kept still for her. He _wanted_ her to set the pace, to follow her instructions, to make it good for her even when she was doing something for him. Her nails bit into his skin a little as he slid deeper into her mouth, then stroked over the reddened skin when she released him with a pop, breathing hard, her chest rising and falling. He looked at her, at her wet full lips, her breasts spilling out of the top of her dress, and had to know what she tasted like.

“Take as long as you need,” he said. “I’m not - I -”

“What if I sucked you until you were hurting?” she asked, a slow and devilish smile making its way across her face. “What if I made you cry, Michael? I did that once, to a guy.”

“Oh fuck,” he said, those pictures he never should have seen coming back to him in a flash. The performative kinkiness of some of them, Megan in red lipstick and black underwear, a riding crop clenched between her teeth. “If you want to. Whatever you want -”

“Not tonight,” she said. “Maybe another time.” She put her mouth on him again.

He felt like warm champagne that was about to pop. “Please,” he said, the back of his shirt sticking to his overheated skin. She hollowed her cheeks around him and he couldn’t help but cry out, his eyes squeezing shut. His hand settled in her hair, cupping her bobbing head. She hadn’t worn lipstick, he thought, suddenly. She’d _planned_ it like this -

Michael spilled into her mouth without warning. She pumped him through it, milking him of every drop. There was triumph in her eyes when she smoothed a hand down his shaking flank, when she saw how much he had come apart for her.

“I was right about you,” she said, whatever that meant. “Take the rest of your clothes off.”

He was acutely aware of her eyes on him when he did. It was slightly awkward; his hair all messed up from pulling his shirt over his head, the fact of his softening cock. But it always _was_ awkward, the first few times he was naked with someone. It took time for him to adjust.

Megan didn’t have that problem. When she climbed into his lap he slid his hands up under her dress, over the creamy skin of her hips, and she was as bare as the day she was born. “Jesus,” he said, stunned.

“Why bother with underwear?” she said, nipping at his lips. “I knew what we were going to be doing.”

“That’s very confident of you,” he said.

“Of course. You’re easier than you let on.”

“Probably,” he said, and tipped her onto the bed. She giggled and pulled at his hair; he didn’t let that stop him. He was a man on a mission. “But I think you liked walking around like that. You like the anticipation as much as the act.”

“The breeze can be fun.”

He laughed with his face against her belly. “Can I eat you out?” he asked. “Please?”

“Returning the favor?”

“Sure,” he said. “But also I just want to.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” she sighed. Her silky dress would get rumpled if they kept at it, so she took it off and draped it over the headboard. Her bra was transparent, her nipples hard. He could see goosebumps rising on the skin of her chest.

“You really want this,” he said, in awe of it all.

“For fuck’s sake,” she said, and dug the point of her heel into his back. “Do you need an engraved invitation?”

Now he was wondering just how frustrated he could make her, if he really tried. Good thing he wasn’t patient enough for a test run. No, he wasn’t. The sound she made when he nosed up against her curls (he wanted to smell her, he wanted to smell _like_ her) settled things.

“My beautiful girl,” he said, and spread her with his fingers.

She tasted like the ocean. He pushed his tongue inside as far as he could, licking her open. The muscles on the insides of her thighs jumped; he bit at one of the twitches, leaving a wet mark. She groaned when he went back at her, sucking her swollen, and then let go to soothe and tease her with flat swipes of his tongue. One of her hands was in his hair and the other clutched at the blankets. She tossed her head on the pillow. He wished he could see more of her but he didn’t want to stop, not for a second.

Then she started grinding against his face and he couldn’t go slow anymore. He had to eat her out until she was fucking dripping all over him, his chin soaked, the heel of her hand pressing against his forehead. Her thighs locked over his back. He sucked hard on her clit and she shrieked as she came, high and sharp, her whole body seizing up and winding down, boneless. Her breath came in sobs.

Michael thought she was done but she wasn’t. When he tried to roll away she shoved him onto his back, her knees on either side of his head. He lay back and let her use his mouth to make herself feel good. The second time she came her nails scraped at his scalp. “Fuck,” she said, “god - please -” and then something in French.

She only remembered to take her bra off afterwards. He kissed the side of her breast and she touched his face. “The way you look right now,” she said.

“Me?” he said. “You look like a pin-up.” All naked except for her shoes.

She slipped them off and climbed under the covers. He had a moment of minor disappointment until she reached out a hand, indicating that he should join her. They lay wrapped around each other.

“Your beautiful girl, huh?” she asked.

“You are,” he said. “You have to know it.”

“Still,” she said. “Nice to hear so from someone who means it.” She looked over at him, searching his face for something. Finally she tugged one of his curls nearly straight, letting it spring back up. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You can do anything you want.”

“When you said you didn’t have any brothers or sisters that you were aware of,” she said, “what were you trying to say? I don’t think I understood.”

“I wasn’t making a joke,” he said. “I don’t know if I do. I’m adopted.”

“Foster care?”

“No,” he said. “A good old-fashioned orphanage. Not long after the iron curtain fell.”

“Ahhh,” she said. “So Eastern Europe.”

“Yeah,” he said. “My Dad is too - he’s from Poland. I don’t know much about my real parents. I know they were Jewish, like Pop is. Apparently I had an Aunt living in Leipzig at some point, but she died. My parents - who knows. Maybe they abandoned me. Maybe they pissed off the Stasi and got disappeared. If they were still doing that in the eighties.”

“I shouldn’t have asked.”

He kissed her on the forehead. “It’s fine,” he said. “If we’re going to have conversations about therapy, then _my_ therapist thinks I should talk about it more.” He also thought it was the origin of Michael’s anxiety disorder, or C-PTSD, or whatever the fuck he had. He didn’t tell her that part. Some things could wait for the third date.

She tucked her head under his chin while he stroked her back. “Do you mind if I stay here tonight?”

“I was hoping you would.”

“Good,” she said. “And you should know: I brought condoms. So take a power nap if you need one.”

“Oh my god, Megan,” he groaned. She laughed, low and dirty, and bit him on the collarbone.

 

 

He was right in predicting that he wouldn’t win the Hugo. But sitting next to Megan, radiating sympathy with her hand in his, he felt like he’d stumbled into something much better.

 

 

 


End file.
